This Philadelphia-area mother was shocked to see herself in a Trump attack ad. She’s a lifelong Democrat voting for Kamala Harris.

Kimberly Burrell sat among a group of loved ones of Philadelphia’s gun violence victims in July for an interview with a national television reporter.

The gathering took place around the anniversary of the death of her 18-year-old son Darryl Pray Jr. in 2009, and Burrell was a bundle of raw emotion.

“I was a mess,” said the 53-year-old paralegal who moved to Delaware about two years ago. “I couldn’t stop crying.”

The reporter pivoted with a few questions about the election for what would later become another segment. And though Burrell and others said they didn’t want to talk much about politics, Burrell shared some general thoughts on the challenges of inflation as a single working mother.

She’d nearly forgotten about the interview until family and friends from across the country started reaching out to the lifelong Democrat last week to tell her they’d just seen her in a political commercial — that was pro-Donald Trump.

Burrell thought they must have gotten it wrong, but then she saw the ad and realized that the tearstained face in it was her own.

“Imagine the mother making minimum wage trying to feed children,” Burrell says in the commercial, getting choked up.

“They’re killing us without killing us,” she says before a split screen juxtaposes an emotional Burrell with a cheerful Vice President Kamala Harris declaring: “That’s called Bidenomics!” before ending with the candidate’s signature laugh.

Burrell was horrified. How could a passionate supporter of Kamala Harris for president become the face of a political attack ad for Trump that had co-opted her image and words in one of her most vulnerable moments?

“I’m distraught,” she told me when I reached out after seeing the commercial and thinking the woman in it looked familiar. The ad didn’t identify Burrell by name, but we’ve spoken several times about the loss of her son.

“They can just steal your image and comments and twist it the way they want it to be twisted,” Burrell said. “It’s just really sick.”

I’d actually been wondering about some of those spots myself as the number of political attack ads increase with less than a month before Election Day. No doubt, both sides do some creative editing for maximum impact, but the ads supporting Trump and other MAGA candidates continue to repeat some of the most outrageous partisan lies. And now one ad plucked an out-of-context comment from a private citizen without her knowledge or consent to paint a candidate she supports as the enemy of communities such as hers.

At first Burrell didn’t know what to do other than apologize.

“I’m sorry,” she told anyone who mentioned the ad. “I’m trying to fix it.”

The 30-second commercial entitled “That’s Called Bidenomics,” began airing Oct. 2 by Restoration PAC, which is largely funded by Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein. In 2018, Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, were the subject of a New York Times article headlined “The most powerful conservative couple you’ve never heard of.”

The duo has thrown their substantial financial portfolio behind candidates who support access to assault weapons and attack transgender rights, including giving millions to a group whose members participated in the rally before the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They’ve also invested in efforts to hinder abortion access in Ohio.

The ad featuring Burrell begins with Harris touting “Bidenomics” and continues with news clips about inflation and the economy. Then it turns to Burrell, a Black woman who’s clearly meant to leave an impression about a lack of support for the candidate among her community.

Burrell doesn’t deny she discussed the economy, but she said those comments were shared during a two-hour interview with MNBC reporter Yasmin Vossoughian that was mostly focused on the impact of gun violence.

At one point, Burrell said, Vossoughian told the group that had gathered to talk about gun violence that she’d be asking a few questions about the election. Burrell said she and other interview subjects told the reporter that they wanted to keep any talk about politics brief and didn’t want to discuss who they were supporting.

Burrell said that she and others indicated they were undecided to keep the conversation focused on gun violence.

When Vossoughian asked who was to blame for inflation, Burrell said she replied “The federal government.” Burrell didn’t expand on her answer the way she did when I pointed out that a reasonable person might assume she was talking about the Biden/Harris administration.

“I’m an educated voter,” Burrell told me. “So I know it takes years to get rid of the policies of the previous administration.”

Even if she wasn’t a Democrat, she said, voting for Trump — a man whose character and values she deplores — would not be an option.

The tears she shed during the interview were about the loss of her son, she said, not the price of peppers.

A Trump campaign spokesperson referred my questions to Restoration PAC. Dan Curry, a spokesperson for the group sent this response:

“Your X feed indicates you are a hard-partisan with a strong case of Trump Derangement Syndrome — therefore you don’t need my help in cobbling together your biased column. Have a blessed day.”

Remember the days when we at least pretended to be professionals? There is a reason Curry felt free to respond so dismissively — and it’s not just because Trump and other MAGA candidates have normalized incivility. It is part of broader pattern in the MAGA world that shouldn’t be successful and yet is: responding with attacks to anyone trying to get at the truth or correct the record or provide a more complete picture of reality.

That curt response still left me wondering: Was it legal for the Restoration PAC to use Burrell’s comments without directly asking her permission first?

According to law experts I talked to the answer is an ambiguous “Yes, but...”

Jeffrey D. Swartz, professor of law at Cooley Law School, specializing in constitutional law, said yes, political action committees have “wide berth” under U.S. copyright law and “fair use” that allows newscast clips to be used with proper attribution.

And here’s the “but:” if Burrell believes that the use of her image and comments misrepresented her views, she could mount a challenge in court asking that the ads be halted. Doing so, however, would be an expensive proposition. (News organizations who mostly throw their hands up can — and should — also push back.)

Even if those challenges go nowhere, added Laura Little, the James G. Schmidt professor of law at Temple University School of Law, Burrell’s story is a valuable “wake-up call” in highlighting the manipulative use of public statements in political ads.

“We’re going to be deluged in the next month with all these attack ads and it kind of brings home that you need to take them with a grain of salt,” Little said.

Unable to keep up with a deluge of messages and calls from friends who’d seen the ads, Burrell recently took to Facebook.

“If we allow Trump to get into office, he will literally and figuratively steal our voices,” she wrote. “He stole my voice and took a moment of vulnerability from me.”

In the meantime, Burrell has contacted Restoration PAC and the Trump campaign, so far to no avail. She’s also contacted a lawyer and is crafting a cease and desist letter.

“This is what we’ve allowed this country to become, a place where lies can be told and go unchallenged” she said. “We give them power by not calling them out on anything.”

Burrell, for one, won’t let that stand.

And neither should we.

We all have the power to fight back, and it doesn’t cost us a thing.

All it takes is casting our votes.